App Review 4u

Never Go Home Review - App Review 4U

<article><div><img alt="Android-action-never-go-home-00" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Never-Go-Home-featured-image.jpg"/></div> <h1>Never Go Home Review</h1> You Have Died of Space Dysentery <img alt="Android-action-never-go-home-01" height="300" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-action-never-go-home-00.jpg" width="300"/> Dying is considered by most to be an undesirable experience, both in life and in video games. , on the other hand, considers it a major selling point. The fast-paced adventure game, developed by Goodnight Games, boasts “100 Ways to Die in Space.” Unfortunately, the gameplay is not as compelling as its twisted sense of humor, and the game will likely leave you wanting more. <div> <div><ins/></div> </div> In , players find themselves piloting the starship Aeternum, stranded in deep space in a frantic search for resources and lost crew members. True to its promise, features a host of embarrassing calamities, from drunk crewmembers accidentally shooting each other to surprise arsenic poisonings, that never seem to let up on the hapless space explorers. The game’s morbid irreverence is a not-so-subtle nod to the old games and that classic “You have died of dysentery” moment. Where falls short of its inspiration, however, is in providing something more interesting to do between deaths. <img alt="Android-action-never-go-home-02" height="338" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-action-never-go-home-01.jpg" width="600"/> In , players pilot the Aeternum through procedurally generated galaxies to land on more procedurally generated planets. The object is to send one crewmember down to each new world in the hopes of finding a lost crewmember stranded there. How those particular crewmembers got to be on those planets is never explained, but is not particularly big on story. After landing on a new planet, the selected crewmember is stationed in the middle of the screen while enemy creatures rush in from all sides. The player must fend off the attackers, blasting away at them by tapping on the screen. While keeping the crewmember alive, one can also rescue any abandoned crewmembers who might be found on the planet and mine gems that can be traded for upgrades. This makes for plenty of arcade-style gameplay, which is good for some casual fun, but can also get stale pretty quickly. The pace of the game is relentless to the point of being exhausting. Even when off-planet, players must continually be on the move or their crew will quickly perish and end the game. In the top left corner of the screen is a counter displaying the number of years that the player has been wandering through the galaxies, and the years rack up pretty quickly. Crewmembers come closer to death with each passing year, and randomly generated events like one in which one of the crew develops a severe case of psychosis and attacks another crewmember will frequently knock out 10 or even 25 percent of the crew’s health. With no way to replenish health, players must always be on the move looking for other planets to restore new members to their perpetually dying crew. Keeping things moving isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it only serves to highlight the game’s lack of variety. You feel like you are rushing around only to get to more of the same stuff. <img alt="Android-action-never-go-home-03" height="338" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-action-never-go-home-02.jpg" width="600"/> The game tries to keep things interesting by adding new monsters into the mix like mechanical scorpions and what appear to be floating human babies with force fields, but it’s hard to stay invested long enough to discover all the things that the world might throw at you. Besides wandering through space, exploring planets, and purchasing upgrades, players can also blast through asteroid belts, get boarded by enemy spacecraft, sacrifice crewmembers to resource-heavy moons, and fall into the occasional boss fight. Mostly, it’s all just a slightly different looking version of the same tap at things until they go away mechanic. There’s no ultimate objective other than to see how long you can survive, which can be entertaining in short bursts, but doesn’t provide much for those looking for a more engrossing game experience. Everything just feels like one giant grind. At the very least, does have a good sense of humor. The tongue-in-cheek descriptions of the various modes of death are nice, like when a jealous crewman poisons another with glass shards for winning a coveted promotion, but not enough to anchor an entire game. When a game tries so hard to kill you to prove that it’s interesting, you might want to play something that keeps you alive and having fun. <div/> Supply Hardcoredroid <a href='http://appreview4u.com/never-go-home-review-app-review-4u/'>Never Go Home Review - App Review 4U</a></article>

Never Go Home Review - App Review 4U

Never Go Home Review You Have Died of Space Dysentery Dying is considered by most to be an undesirable experience, both in life and in video...

Chaos Rings III Review - App Review 4U

Unknown 0 6:42 AM

<article><div><img alt="chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-00" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-00-620x350.jpg"/></div> <h1>Chaos Rings III Review</h1> Keeping the Dream Alive <img alt="chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-u-review-it" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-u-review-it.jpg"/>It’s been quite some time since we’ve seen Square Enix’s mobile division show some real ambition. Where once they delivered ambitious originals like and , now they seem more content to churn out ports and remakes of and accompanied by the occasional free-to-play distraction. After three long years, Square has finally released a new installment in their trilogy, and it does anything but rest on its laurels. In fact, is such a departure, it’s hard to even recognize this as the same series. The previous titles were dark, mysterious affairs, informed by Atlus’ output more than typical Square Enix fare, and wrapped around a complex time-hopping plot that renders questions like “prequel” or “sequel” seemingly irrelevant. The newest entry jettisons that tone completely in favor of a more colorful, lighthearted approach, sure to please anime fans and Japanese-RPG initiates. <div> <div><ins/></div> </div> does retain the basic structure of the earlier games, with a hub world that allows you to teleport to self-contained dungeons, as well as some of the basics of its battle system, but that’s about where the similarities end. Instead, we have a brighter, more colorful world drawn from sci-fi anime and the likes of more than the grim and gothic tones of . <img alt="chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-01" height="338" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-01.jpg" width="600"/> But despite this bright and colorful tone, there’s still an underlying sadness to the world. Humanity is living inside a large orbital space station called Neo Pascal, a beautiful, surreal landscape of floating islands inside a large glass dome, orbiting a planet known as Marble Blue. Marble Blue is landscape of post-apocalyptic beauty, reclaimed cities that speak volumes about the forgotten civilizations that once lived there. Now overrun with lush plant-life – not to mention monsters – it suggests a darkness that the characters seem oblivious to. Your nameless main character embraces all of the classic J-RPG tropes. He’s a teenage orphan with a giant sword who sets off to join a league of explorers in the big city. He’s following in the footsteps of his father, in search of some mystery. It’s the standard coming-of-age fare that dominates the genre, a boy striking out on his own and heading for the big city. And it is a city. New Paleo serves as the game’s main hub, a glimmering futuristic metropolis, with shops, homes, and activities to explore. It’s a much livelier place than the mysterious arena of the previous games. There’s a Battle Mode where players can test their skills for bonuses, and a constant flow of new missions and side quests flowing in. <img alt="chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-02" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-02.jpg"/> These missions all take place on the surface of Marble Blue, in self-contained labyrinths of paths dotted with treasure chests and soaked in random encounters. Although there isn’t really much in the way of puzzles or environmental action, these stages are considerably larger than anything in the series previously, and feel perhaps even more open thanks to the newly 3D graphics and follow-view camera, making exploration a more rewarding experience. The move to 3D makes a big difference, but  is still very dated looking. Where the previous games looked like high-resolution PlayStation 1 games, CR3 looks like an HD PlayStation 2 game. Still, despite the blurry, flat textures and chunky environment models, it’s still a gorgeous game, full of memorable and beautiful places, even if it’s hardly going to push your phone to its limits. Like its predecessors, combat is a straightforward, turn-based affair, but with a few hooks that allow you to coordinate your attacks as a team. You’ll regain all your health after each battle, which might sound like it makes the game easy, but in practice it allows the developers to crank up the difficulty so that mundane fights can be challenging too. There’s even player-controlled level scaling for those who want an extra challenge (and experience reward). Taking a page from the series, you’ll level up by unlocking “genes” representing powerful alter-egos, allowing you to unlock different sets of spells for each character, and adding some welcome variety. <img alt="chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-03" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/chaos-ring-3-best-android-rpg-03.jpg"/> Despite its dungeon-crawler structure, puts a lot of effort into presenting its story, with frequent cut-scenes, some of which are voice acted (in Japanese), and lots of character-building conversation. While none of the characters really elevate beyond basic anime tropes, you’ll grow to like them all the same as you watch them interact. While many fans are likely to be divided on the dramatic shift in style, it’s hard to deny that is the biggest, most ambitious original J-RPG you can get on Android. While others are content to remake the past, or relive it through pastiche, Square’s latest is a rare reminder of what can happen when Android is treated like a real gaming platform. Its price is hefty, but it’s honest, devoid of IAPs, timers, and other means of extorting money from players, and it offers a game of a quality and scope that would feel right at home on a dedicated gaming handheld like 3DS. For those who still believe mobile can be what handhelds once were, is the best evidence yet. <div/> Supply Hardcoredroid <a href='http://appreview4u.com/chaos-rings-iii-review-app-review-4u/'>Chaos Rings III Review - App Review 4U</a></article>

Chaos Rings III Review - App Review 4U

Chaos Rings III Review Keeping the Dream Alive It’s been quite some time since we’ve seen Square Enix’s mobile division show some real ambit...

Batman: Arkham Knight review - App Review 4u

Unknown 0 6:26 AM

<div> <div> <div> The first encounter with these unmanned drones is roughly the same as the last. It’s as simple as avoiding the drones’ visible line of fire and picking them off. These are not dreadful sequences, they just compare poorly to everything else that the Arkham series excels at. But there’s another side to the vehicle combat that’s far more offensive: car stealth. Later in the story, larger tanks called cobras enter the fray, which can’t be destroyed head-on like the others, and punish you with a near-instant death if you’re caught by them. Cobras can only be taken out by sneaking up on them, usually from behind a building (in a car, which is daft) and carefully lining up a shot on their rear weak point. I really dislike these sequences, and I feel they require the luck of not being trapped in a corner by their line of fire more than actual skill; the cobras can so thoroughly get in the bin. One especially busy cobra assault later in the story is so poorly designed that it dragged down my overall impression of Arkham Knight’s final act, which is a shame. <img src="http://3ebd2a0c0ea48a333aea-1f531def8e8befb67be56667ce3edd11.r77.cf1.rackcdn.com/2c8558a0ee15bc49e1866f878f66b14b8006283a.jpg__620x349_q85_crop_upscale.jpg"/> The Batmobile is a mixed affair, then, but Arkham’s straightforward stealth and crunchy melee combat are still world-class. There’s no reinvention here, just tweaks to give players new strategies and things to learn. One of my favourite new predator tools is a device that imitates the voice of Batman’s villains and can order guards to investigate specific objects or places, breaking them from the pack and allowing the player to land an easy stealth knockout. In freeflow, contextual attacks mean the Dark Knight can drag a guy’s head into an electrical box (which somehow doesn’t violate his rule of not killing people), or bring a light fitting down on top of some poor bastard. He can also throw batarangs while gliding, and with the Batmobile in close proximity, use its blank bullets to spam an enemy out of the air as a winning combo finisher. Another new option is the tag team attack, which sees Batman pairing up with a number of his closest allies to perform deadly finishing moves, switching between two playable characters. My favourite sequence in the game sees Batman and Robin teaming up in a context I won’t describe, to avoid any spoilers. When the dynamic duo hear goons talking on the other side of some double doors, they both kick through simultaneously and properly beat the toss out of them with these lovely combo finishers. There’s even a predator section where Batman and Robin silently take out guards as a pair. I just wish there was more of it – the main story has roughly just an hour of Batman and Robin teaming up, but Rocksteady will throw reams of robot tanks at you at any opportunity. <img src="http://3ebd2a0c0ea48a333aea-1f531def8e8befb67be56667ce3edd11.r77.cf1.rackcdn.com/64122ee078f13aa14462673762731a6bb545a881.jpg__620x349_q85_crop_upscale.jpg"/> The main story loses out because of those sorts of decisions, and it’s not helped by the generally wonky storytelling, sometimes hammy dialogue and unconvincing duo of primary villains. Once you’ve beaten the 12-14 hour campaign, though, you can basically ignore the robot tanks and focus on Arkham Knight’s strengths – like Arkham City, the sidequests in the open world are almost universally fantastic, even if they’re just repackaging existing parts of the game with villain-themed stories linking them together. The citywide takeover by Batman’s rogue’s gallery gives Rocksteady an ideal excuse to check them all off. There’s a decent sense of variety between them. A trio of bank robberies by Two-Face turn into thrilling and tricky predator sections on a time limit, while a subplot involving the Penguin’s weapons supplies brings out a few genuinely great character moments between Bruce and his former Robin, Nightwing. The Riddler challenges bulk out the city with plenty to do, and he’s a bit more involved as a story character this time around, even if his underground Batmobile races are beyond silly. <img src="http://3ebd2a0c0ea48a333aea-1f531def8e8befb67be56667ce3edd11.r77.cf1.rackcdn.com/339c33d246f714f8521dfe96a5e4897c3a2b690e.jpg__620x349_q85_crop_upscale.jpg"/> There are also a few excellent sidequests that offer narrative surprises on the level of Hush or Mad Hatter from Arkham City. They’re not all winners: rubbish arson-happy Arkham Origins villain Firefly returns via three terrible chase sequences around the city that made me swear a lot, and others are just repetitive fetch quests with little flavour, but there’s plenty of game to keep you exploring this gorgeous city. Once I put a bit of distance between the campaign’s problems and the more positive experience of patrolling Gotham and mopping up these hours of sidequests, I really started to love Arkham Knight. I can see players just dipping in and out of this world forever, jumping in the Batmobile to chase down some criminals, visiting the villains in the lock-up at GCPD, gliding from an airship onto the LexCorp building; just being Batman in this worthy depiction of his universe. <img src="http://3ebd2a0c0ea48a333aea-1f531def8e8befb67be56667ce3edd11.r77.cf1.rackcdn.com/d17a5e8334aa68cd8d1409e7975f96a3e878a055.jpg__620x349_q85_crop_upscale.jpg"/> On that level, Arkham Knight offers an unparalleled interactive superhero experience that’s as rich as any fan could hope for – this is one of the best open worlds I have ever had the pleasure of exploring, and one of the nicest-looking games on PS4. Without overcomplicating the Batmobile’s purpose in Arkham Knight and a slightly less disappointing campaign, this would’ve been close to a perfect sign-off for Rocksteady’s Caped Crusader. This game was reviewed on PS4. </div> </div> <div> <div> </div> <div> <div/> </div> </div> </div> Supply Gamesradar <a href='http://appreview4u.com/batman-arkham-knight-review-app-review-4u/'>Batman: Arkham Knight review - App Review 4u</a>

Batman: Arkham Knight review - App Review 4u

The first encounter with these unmanned drones is roughly the same as the last. It’s as simple as avoiding the drones’ visible line of fire ...

Atlantic Fleet Review - App Review 4U

Unknown 0 1:00 AM

<article><div><img alt="AFfeature" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/AFfeature-620x350.png"/></div> <h1>Atlantic Fleet Review</h1> Ship’s Broken <img alt="aficon" height="151" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/aficon.jpg" width="150"/>I like ship combat. Whether it be on the water, in the air or the vacuum of space, something about vessels shooting each other appeals to me. Among these, water based combat has been a bit underrepresented in games. Being a good deal slower in comparison to less frictional arenas, games like Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag showed everyone that there’s no shortage of fun to be had blasting one another on the high seas. Then there’s Atlantic Fleet. A contemplative experience to say the least, I’ll get the few compliments I have for the game out of the way. While the attempted pseudo-realistic graphics are really not my cup of tea for a mobile game, they’re akin to a mid-range PS1 title, which is respectable for a mobile release. The roster of warships on display is also large and it seems that attention has been paid to little details like modeling and design with a fully rotating camera to see all the ship glory. Lastly, with single player battles and 2 full campaigns, there’s a lot of game to play if you’re particularly determined. <div> <div><ins/></div> </div> <img alt="af1" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/af1.jpg"/> With that out of the way, I can firmly say this game is garbage. The most glaring issue is that the game is painfully boring. From the first level spent chasing down a defenseless Nazi merchant ship to full scale fleet combat, at no point during the considerably padded run time was I remotely entertained. Every inch gliding across the ocean, every sunk ship, every orange pellet fired failed to give me a modicum of enjoyment. Atlantic Fleet is turn-based, each turn consisting of a forced movement and forced weapon discharge of each ship in the fleet. While it’s somewhat puzzling you’re forced to do both to move forward, it’s within these two actions that comprise the “gameplay”. The movement controls are imprecise, so with every forced movement you just take your best guess at speed/heading and pray to Poseidon that you haven’t oriented yourself poorly. However, any notion that maneuvering your ships matters at all evaporates (along with any notion of strategy), once you make the eventual discovery that the game flat out tells you the values your cannon sights need to score. I tried not using this feature, as it eliminates the need for human input, but hitting enemies without it is almost impossible and at the same time unrewarding. What the game ultimately devolves into is you and a computer aimlessly roving around, taking turns flinging peas at one another. There’s no definitive indication on how much damage each ship can dish out or take so the best reasonable tactic in all situations is blasting the closest enemy ship one at a time until it explodes. <img alt="af2" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/af2.jpg"/> These points illustrate a more pressing concern: that the gameplay is non-existent. It’s a mirage by which the developers tried to fool people into thinking this was a game of some sort. Accordingly, I will cease to  refer to this as a game. Other components are equally barren. There’s no story at all, just numbered missions with increasing size and number of pea flickers on either team. This also diminishes any immersion you might have hoped to find, as you play as a disembodied warship spirit, whose only real purpose is to adjust number and click the button to initiate the pre-determined action. The controls are not only never explained, but hard to both figure out and use with precision even on my tablet, so I would think executing this program on a phone would be even more unpleasant. These shortcomings are compounded with the price point at a healthy ten bucks, which no doubt is to recoup the high production values on topical things like water rendering. Again the graphics are great, but without any gameplay to back them up, all they do is provide a pleasant beach setting for this turd to float in. When all’s said and done, it’s uncertain what genre this belongs to other than over-priced. You end up paying for something, which while visually competent, is nothing more than a simulation minus the meaningful interaction. Technically speaking there is a lot of hours to be played. Unfortunately, calling a session with this piece of crap play is like calling a stint in Guantanamo a long vacation. If you’re looking for a program to digitally visualize your model WW2 ships that also launches tiny orange marbles at one another, you’re in luck grandpa. But for anyone whose definition of a game involves stimulation, or meaningful player input, jog on because this program isn’t about to conform to that ludicrous definition. <div/> Supply Hardcoredroid <a href='http://appreview4u.com/atlantic-fleet-review-app-review-4u/'>Atlantic Fleet Review - App Review 4U</a></article>

Atlantic Fleet Review - App Review 4U

Atlantic Fleet Review Ship’s Broken I like ship combat. Whether it be on the water, in the air or the vacuum of space, something about vesse...

Fallout Shelter dethrones top-grossing app Candy Crush Saga - App Review 4U

Unknown 0 5:52 AM

<div> Longtime App Store sales champ Candy Crush Saga was surpassed today by Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, a Fallout-themed mobile game that premiered earlier this week. Candy Crush Saga previously held a comfortable third place in the App Store’s Top Grossing Apps chart, ranking behind current champions Clash of Clans and Game of War: Fire Age. Given the long-term popularity of all three games, it’s unusual for a newcomer to take over one of the top chart spots as quickly as Fallout Shelter did. <img src="http://3ebd2a0c0ea48a333aea-1f531def8e8befb67be56667ce3edd11.r77.cf1.rackcdn.com/96e65d9e75507fed03975e6b30a6a662d7f65373.PNG__2048x1536_q85_crop_upscale.jpg"/> The Top Grossing Apps section of the App Store features the current leading apps in terms of revenue intake, effectively tracking customer purchases in real time. Though Fallout Shelter is available as a free download, players can purchase optional in-game perks using real cash, driving its quick rise in the App Store’s rankings. Fallout Shelter also takes top honors in Apple’s Top Free Apps chart, earning more downloads over the last 24 hours than popular apps like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. For more about Fallout 4 and its curiously popular mobile spinoffs, check out our E3 2015 hub for the latest news from Los Angeles. </div> Supply Gamesradar <a href='http://appreview4u.com/fallout-shelter-dethrones-top-grossing-app-candy-crush-saga-app-review-4u/'>Fallout Shelter dethrones top-grossing app Candy Crush Saga - App Review 4U</a>

Fallout Shelter dethrones top-grossing app Candy Crush Saga - App Review 4U

Longtime App Store sales champ Candy Crush Saga was surpassed today by Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, a Fallout-themed mobile game that premier...

Lego Jurassic World review - App Review 4u

Unknown 0 5:44 AM

<div> <div> <div> You never get very long with them in story mode, sadly, though each of the films has set-piece moments where you take control of a scaly creature. These are generally fantastic, if not especially faithful to the source material. Fending off raptors in Jurassic Park 3 as an Ankylosaurus is rare instance of truly enjoyable combat, while using the T. Rex in the climatic visitor centre battle — where you’ll use QTEs to stun raptors, allowing the group of survivors to finish them off with puzzles — is a delightfully nostalgic bit of back and forth. It’s not just combat the dinos enliven, but the humour too. The first movie’s raptor kitchen scene, once darkly terrifying, is all the funnier for seeing the dino you shut in the freezer in a tiny woolly hat later. The long grass moment in The Lost World is mocked mercilessly, and while Lego Jurassic World cops out of dealing with death and terror, that just seems to challenge Traveller’s Tales cutscene team to find daft ways to make characters disappear. If the cinematics have a problem, it’s the occasionally patchy audio quality of dialogue lifted directly from the first three films, which persists into levels and stands out next to the freshly voiced extras. The World levels sidestep the problem, and have more chatter to boot. <img src="http://3ebd2a0c0ea48a333aea-1f531def8e8befb67be56667ce3edd11.r77.cf1.rackcdn.com/86930c307ec660d2c028895ea02182780a8323eb.jpg__620x349_q85_crop_upscale.jpg"/> Outside of story mode is where you’ll get to see what Lego Jurassic World’s bestiary can really do, returning in Free Play to rinse these levels of collectibles and earn gold bricks. Several more shiny blocks await in the overworlds of Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna, plus bonus chase levels, where you mostly run into the camera, dodging attacks and following stud trails. As a whole, running segments are short-lived and well-framed, though a bit of a memory test if you want to get all the pickups.  The better distractions are the enclosures, where you can use those bricks to build pads that summon the lizards too big to work in the main game. Stomping about a paddock as a T. Rex is a disposable pleasure, but those five memorable minutes break up a highly familiar core. There are also workers to rescue, races to win, dinosaurs to heal and new characters to unlock, though I doubt even the most ardent fans are dying to drop studs on the likes of Dino Handler Bob. In fact, the human roster is one of the weakest yet, with only the principles in their various outfits being worth the effort unless gaming OCD kicks in. <img src="http://3ebd2a0c0ea48a333aea-1f531def8e8befb67be56667ce3edd11.r77.cf1.rackcdn.com/afc8d4fb05f153a37c7ad64746aff2e2bc05ec9f.jpg__620x349_q85_crop_upscale.jpg"/> While the hubs are likeable enough, their use in the campaign is a little misguided, linking together the story missions and offering context at the cost of being able to easily dip in and out of other islands (you can still use the map to replay levels). As sins go, it’s far from the worst. I also ran into a few game crashes on PS4, and the buddy AI continues to be dumb, getting stuck in the oddest of places. By this stage, it seems foolish to expect it will ever be fixed, but it’s still lame. It’s a funny time for Lego games. What with Dimensions looming like a meteorite and Worlds doing a Minecraft, maybe this long-serving formula will slip into extinction soon. On the strength of Lego Jurassic World, I wouldn’t bet on it. It may be a modest advance, and it’s no cure for Lego fatigue, but after some consideration, I’ve decided to endorse this Park tie-in.    </div> </div> <div> <div> </div> <div> <div/> </div> </div> </div> Supply Gamesradar <a href='http://appreview4u.com/lego-jurassic-world-review-app-review-4u/'>Lego Jurassic World review - App Review 4u</a>

Lego Jurassic World review - App Review 4u

You never get very long with them in story mode, sadly, though each of the films has set-piece moments where you take control of a scaly cre...

Sorcery! 3 Review - App Review 4U

Unknown 0 3:33 AM

<article><div><img alt="Android-RPG-Sorcery-3-20" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-RPG-Sorcery-3-20.jpg"/></div> <h1>Sorcery! 3 Review</h1> Get lost in a magical world; just don’t expect a lot of action <img alt="Android-RPG-Sorcery!-3-01" height="300" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-RPG-Sorcery-3-01.png" width="300"/>Sorcery! 3 continues the trend in mobile gaming of combining videogames and choose-your-own-adventure novels, and while it takes few risks, it is an awfully big adventure. While there have been a good chunk of choose-your-own-adventure games in recent years, few have created a world as engaging, expansive, and changeable as Sorcery! 3. Sorcery! 3 eschews tension-ratcheting gameplay and detailed animation in favor of world-building and choice complexity. This makes the game immersive, but it also makes it less of a game. In fact, it could almost be a browser-based text adventure rather than a mobile game. The elements that make it more than a massive branching novel are often unpolished and cumbersome. It does have gameplay, however, but there are no controls to master, no level-ups, and few skills to speak of. Conflict is solved, instead, by cunning, intuition, and memory. The right choice could leave you with a new, powerful spell, but the wrong one could leave you robbed, injured, or even outright dead. It is sometimes hard to know which decision is the right one, but that’s part of the fun. There is surprisingly little traditional story telling in Sorcery! 3. That’s usually a death sentence to a game novel, but Sorcery! 3’s unique blend of game and novel elements somehow makes it OK. Great, even. Instead of worrying about who you are and why you’re trying to get from one end of the map to the other, you become immersed in the mysterious and well-built world the author has crafted. You travel through the creatively named “Old World” to stop the “Archmage” who stole the “Crown of Kings” because it is implied that he will do very bad things with it. While the stakes and fantasy terms are generic, the world map is not. Shown from the top-down perspective, it is a sweeping expanse containing deserts, perilous mountains, and oppressive forests. Overhead and all around are literal winds of time that shift the area from past to present, turning deserts into lush plains, forests into swamps, decay into thriving life. Throughout, there are allusions to ancient civilizations, future perils, and hidden magic. After a challenge is overcome, you are more often than not left with questions and the sense that something deeper lurks beneath your adventure. There are whirlwinds that threaten and then disappear, shrinking giants, and dark rituals that wither you to the bone and then restore you completely. Few explanations are found for these strange experiences, but each one pulls you deeper into the world of Sorcery! 3. <div> <div><ins/></div> </div> While most encounters are best solved with careful judgment, combat is sometimes necessary. This is where the friction between the game and the novel shows. Combat is a herky-jerky guessing-game in which you have to guess a number and hope it’s higher than your opponent’s. There are clues in the text about how you should attack an enemy, but usually they are only helpful after several retries. <img alt="Android-RPG-Sorcery!-3-02" height="450" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-RPG-Sorcery-3-02.jpg" width="600"/> In fact, you will find that many encounters exact a harsh toll, especially in the latter half of the adventure. To solve this problem, there is a rewind feature. It lets you backtrack every choice you make. I am torn about this feature. On the one hand, the difficult-to-navigate branching paths of Sorcery! 3 lead to a rewarding challenge, and allowing an instant rewind makes it an exercise in trial-and-error instead of a challenging adventure. On the other hand, it serves as a continuous autosave that allows you to experience more of the world in one playthrough. Spellcasting, too, is a double-edged sword. The magic system is arduous. You have to jump between several screens to check your spellbook against the situation you are in and to find the possible spells you can cast in that situation. However, the spells themselves open up a bevy of possibilities of Sorcery! 3 by allowing you to alter yourself and the world around you with spells that range from speaking with snakes to levitating. <img alt="Android-RPG-Sorcery!-3-03" height="450" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-RPG-Sorcery-3-03.jpg" width="600"/> This enormity of choice is what makes Sorcery! 3 great. And it’s not just the spells that open up new paths. The world of Sorcery!3 is an old one, and enchanted lighthouses can transport you from the near-apocalyptic present to the lush and dangerous past by letting you choose which parts of the map bloom into life and which parts stay in the darkness. Illuminating a ruin can transform it into a thriving city. But there is always a trade-off. Make a city flourish and it may lead the way to a destination filled with peril. As a game novel, Sorcery 3 neither emphasizes its novel elements nor its game aspects to the detriment of the other. It is an almost perfect hybrid – a true immersive digital adventure. And that’s as it should be. Of course, there’s another camp that feels there’s no place for the hybrid that is the game novel. Hardcore Droid’s review of Sorcery! 1, for example, has a less enchanted view of things. But this is 2015, and titles driven by narrative are becoming increasingly popular. Telltale Games’ reinvention of the point and click adventure by way of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones comes to mind. Like it or not the narrative-driven game is part and parcel of the Android gaming canon, and to a lot of us, game novels not only make for fun games, but the genre as a whole, has earned its place among Android’s best titles. There is room for improvement in Sorcery! 3, which is somewhat troubling since it is the third chapter and there has been plenty of time to work out the kinks. The title’s combat is pretty dysfunctional and should either be enhanced or done away with entirely. Spellcasting should be streamlined and made more user-friendly. While the spell system is well-integrated into the game as a whole, I was hesitant to experiment because of its cumbersome nature. What S3 lacks however in its combat and magic systems, it makes up for in scope, though ultimately there didn’t need to be a tradeoff between these elements. And yet, it’s hard to fault an enchanting game in and emerging medium for the speed bumps of progress. Instead, this game novel deserves a great deal of praise for its depth, daring, and downright excitement. Sorcery! 3 packs more excitement into a sentence than most polished AAA games render in all their explosions and gore. <div/> Supply Hardcoredroid <a href='http://appreview4u.com/sorcery-3-review-app-review-4u/'>Sorcery! 3 Review - App Review 4U</a></article>

Sorcery! 3 Review - App Review 4U

Sorcery! 3 Review Get lost in a magical world; just don’t expect a lot of action Sorcery! 3 continues the trend in mobile gaming of combini...

Always Sometimes Monsters Review - App Review 4U

Unknown 0 3:32 AM

<article><div><img alt="Always-Sometimes-Monsters-Best-Android-RPG-00" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Always-Sometimes-Monsters-Best-Android-RPG-00.jpg"/></div> <h1>Always Sometimes Monsters Review</h1> Always Sometimes Underwhelming. <img alt="Always-Sometimes-Monsters-Best-Android-RPG-Thumb" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Always-Sometimes-Monsters-Best-Android-RPG-Thumb.png"/>Since is, by my reckoning, one of the best role-playing games to be produced in years, it’s an extraordinary curse to be an RPG up for review in the same month, perhaps even the same year, as its release. Luckily is quite a different sort of role-playing beast – less autochthonous haunter of Transylvanian forests, more creeping terror of the noughties cityscape. Sadly, it’s also a rather misshapen creature: one of ’s numerous offspring, it mixes inspiring highs with some frustrating, almost unforgiveable, lows. Let’s start with the good. You have a lot of choice over who you play in this game: black or white, male or female, straight or gay, you can experience prejudice and bigotry, or take privilege’s easy road through life. Your choice is made almost blind, at the start of the game, and then you have to live with it. It’s a nice way of bringing the player round to the fact that these aren’t choices we make – they are simply facts we have to live with. There’s a good deal of depth to how these things affect your character, too, since you spend most of the game down on your luck, fighting from dollar to dollar for both your survival and your sense of being. The game almost succeeds in making that air of desperation palpable; I should say that I really, really, admire these aspects of the game. <div> <div><ins/></div> </div> <img alt="Always-Sometimes-Monsters-Best-Android-RPG-02" height="455" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Always-Sometimes-Monsters-Best-Android-RPG-02.png" width="600"/> Unfortunately there’s a few things getting in the way of my admiration of . I was aware, coming to this review, that its writing has been praised by other reviewers, and so I set my standards rather high. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The game is insistent – in an almost naive way – on the importance of choice in human life, to the extent that the framing device for the whole adventure has you apprehended by a masked gunman who babbles about choice like a moody teenager writing the liner notes for their self-published album of power ballads. There’s good writing in there too, for sure, but as someone who actually spends time sorting the good from the merely promising in my day-job as a literary editor, I felt a bit let down by the patchiness of it all. To make things worse, I ended up playing as a writer thrown out by their publishers for failing to produce a promised first novel. It’s a situation so entirely unlike my experiences of first-time novelists (nobody signs an unknown, first-time writer in the modern publishing world without seeing a manuscript that’s already 99% complete) that I began to lose faith in the game’s ability to represent modern life at all. It was around this time I stopped trying to act as though I was a struggling writer and simply began doing bad things because I could. In a game that depends on its ability to immerse you in a realistic, contemporary story this is a pretty big flaw. Things didn’t get any better after the minigames began to appear, all of which I found excruciating: has never really shone at producing enjoyable minigames, and I began to get some rather serious hanging and lagging at about this point. Both my Bluestacks and tablet incarnations of the game often felt rather clumsy, with my attempts to fast-forward through dialogue using the on-screen buttons sometimes resulting in me selecting conversation options before they appeared on screen. However much I wanted to role-play my character, the game gradually eroded my desire to bother. Between characters harping on about the importance of ‘choices’ and ‘decisions’ – rather than saying words actual humans would say – and the incessant distraction of laggy controls and minigames, my initial enthusiasm for the game’s noble aims just petered out. <img alt="Always-Sometimes-Monsters-Best-Android-RPG-01" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Always-Sometimes-Monsters-Best-Android-RPG-01.jpg"/> I soldiered on for a while, but things didn’t get much better. Perhaps part of the problem was the inclusiveness of the story: in trying to accommodate all sorts of backgrounds for your character it ended up sprawling, making them feel just a little too similar. It might have been a stronger game if you had simply been black and gay from the start, experiencing precisely what it means to be black and gay in contemporary American life – good writing, after all, depends on the sharpness of portrayal, and on that unshakeable bond between character and situation. I desperately wanted to say so many more nice things about this game, but I’ll have to settle for saying that it’s just pretty good as an indie game goes. Perhaps if the developers had focused not merely on having good ideas about what to write in the game and had instead actually written those good ideas properly, this would have gone down as one of my favorite Indie RPGs. This game feels like it’s been cursed, its human centre covered in some sort of lycanthropic horror of bad controls and minigames: in spite of its truly humane centre it still feels deformed, ugly, and for me at least, just too hard to love. <div/> Supply Hardcoredroid <a href='http://appreview4u.com/always-sometimes-monsters-review-app-review-4u/'>Always Sometimes Monsters Review - App Review 4U</a></article>

Always Sometimes Monsters Review - App Review 4U

Always Sometimes Monsters Review Always Sometimes Underwhelming. Since is, by my reckoning, one of the best role-playing games to be produce...

The Last Warlock Review - App Review 4U

Unknown 0 7:56 AM

<article><div><img alt="Android-strategy-The-Last-Warlock-00" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-strategy-The-Last-Warlock-00-620x350.png"/></div> <h1>The Last Warlock Review</h1> In Warlock-Step <img alt="Android-strategy-The-Last-Warlock-thumb" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-strategy-The-Last-Warlock-thumb.png"/>Turn-based strategy has entered a bit of a renaissance lately. After being almost totally sidelined by action games and real-time strategy, titles like and brought some relevance back to the idea of waiting patiently. The genre is well-suited to mobile as well, since it foregoes fast-paced twitch controls in favor of thoughtful taps. That said, maybe the taps could stand to put a more pep in their step. In , you play as a…well, a warlock. Some might say “the last one.” This warlock is capable of summoning other characters to fight alongside, ranging from wood elf archers to zombies to minotaurs. You move the warlock and its minions around a colorful 3D pixel grid, spending combat turns to attack, summon, or perform simple actions like opening chests. Light environmental puzzles break up the combat, but most of your time will be spent facing off against other non-warlock magic-users. <div> <div><ins/></div> </div> <img alt="Android-strategy-The-Last-Warlock-01" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-strategy-The-Last-Warlock-01.png"/> Missions are generally well-designed. The environments feel streamlined, but with enough space for light exploration, tracking down extraneous loot and monsters. Because of the summoning mechanic, I felt encouraged to experiment from mission to mission. I never felt like I was locking myself into a specific party type, since there’s no character to level up except the warlock. Still, it’s a bit annoying that no characters start with weapons, forcing you to begin each level with a hunt for equipment. The turn-based structure also leads to a few pacing missteps. Even tactical RPG classics like drew a distinction between in-combat and out-of-combat control, allowing you to move freely when outside battle. features no such distinction, so you’ll be bound by AP limits even while simply walking between fights. Granted, is divided into short missions, composed mostly of combat, but any downtime can really kill the momentum. Inventory management also proves perplexing. Each of your characters has their own separate satchel, and they can only transfer items when standing adjacent to one another. If it were paired with strict satchel space limitations, it might be an interesting strategic wrinkle, but as it stands, I just send my warlock to collect everyone else’s items at the end of a battle, adding another step to my slow movement chain. <img alt="Android-strategy-The-Last-Warlock-02" src="http://www.hardcoredroid.com/wp-content/upLoads/2015/06/Android-strategy-The-Last-Warlock-02.png"/> The visual style is charming, if a little generic. The world is made of -like blocks, even down to the tiniest particle effects. I wish the same care had been taken with the UI, which features some weak fonts and busy patterns on buttons. It would be nice if a little more care was taken with the presentation, because I found it pretty off-putting at first. There is a good game in here, and it would be a shame if potential fans passed on it because of a shoddy screenshot. Still, that good game is admittedly slow, even down to double-tapping to select a character. Hardcore turn-based fans will probably view it as par for the course, but for the rest, this likely won’t be an entry point. If you do see it through, though, you may end up wanting another warlock beyond the last. <div/> Supply Hardcoredroid <a href='http://appreview4u.com/the-last-warlock-review-app-review-4u/'>The Last Warlock Review - App Review 4U</a></article>

The Last Warlock Review - App Review 4U

The Last Warlock Review In Warlock-Step Turn-based strategy has entered a bit of a renaissance lately. After being almost totally sidelined ...